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12/03/2014

MUMFORD & SONS and THE GOODNESS OF CHURCH - Timshel; A Reflection

“But you are not alone in thisAnd you are not alone in thisAs brothers we will stand and we'll hold your handHold your hand...”

- From Timshel by Mumford and Sons

These words have brought me strength this week as I gaze across the panorama of my congregation and as the pastor feel the hurt of so many. Some are in hospital, some are grieving and others are hurting for family and friends in crisis. In it all, I thank God that I belong to a community that not only prays for each other but shows tangible love and support in their indiscriminate acts of kindness (but that is Foy Vance!). I am so delighted to part of a people where as Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 12:26: “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it...”

God never intended us to be islands. From the community of the three-in-one mystery of the Trinity to the “it is not good for man to be alone” in early Genesis, the wisdom of God is relationship and community. It is well catalogued that those who live in isolation struggle in many psychological ways. We are wired for human interaction and now live in a modern western world in the midst of social break down. Into that void the Church should be an alternative model of human interdependency. Mumford and Sons capture this support network of community beautifully. The words speak of a unity of people that has a strength to see us through are illnesses, grieving and heartaches.